COOK enters through the door which MARY has left open.
MR MARCH. Ah, Cook! You're back, then? What's to be done?
MRS MARCH. [With a laugh] We must devise means!
COOK. Oh, ma'am, it does remind me so of the tantrums he used to get
into, dear little feller! Smiles with recollection.
MRS MARCH. [Sharply] You're not to take him up anything to eat, Cook!
COOK. Oh! But Master Johnny does get so hungry. It'll drive him wild,
ma'am. Just a Snack now and then!
MRS MARCH. No, Cook. Mind--that's flat!
COOK. Aren't I to feed Faith, ma'am?
MR MARCH. Gad! It wants it!
MRS MARCH. Johnny must come down to earth.
COOK. Ah! I remember how he used to fall down when he was little--he
would go about with his head in the air. But he always picked himself up
like a little man.
MARY. Listen!
They all listen. The distant sounds of a concertina being played
with fury drift in through the open door.
COOK. Don't it sound 'eavenly!
The concertina utters a long wail.
CURTAIN.
ACT III
The MARCH'S dining-room on the same evening at the end of a perfunctory
dinner. MRS MARCH sits at the dining-table with her back to the windows,
MARY opposite the hearth, and MR MARCH with his back to it. JOHNNY is
not present. Silence and gloom.
MR MARCH. We always seem to be eating.
MRS MARCH. You've eaten nothing.
MR MARCH.
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